I find myself in a quandary with a project I'm currently proofreading, and since I've found useful information on this board before, I thought I would dive in and see if y'all can help me directly.

What I'm finding is an inconsistency in using approximate vs. exact numbers. For example, I might come across one sentence which reads, "Over 40 members attended," and then, in another section, encounter, "67 members were surveyed."

I understand from a marketing standpoint the values of one over the other, but in a situation where marketing is negligible, what (if any) are the grammar rules governing when one or the other should be used? My guess would be, if exact numbers are known, use exact; if they are not, use approximate. This is just a guess, however.

--For numbers less than 100, the number must be spelled out, rather than written in numeric form. Forty-three people attended the speech.

--For numbers of 100 or more, the number should be written in numeric form. 143 people attended the speech.

I don't know if that's a universal thing, or a US thing, or what... but it's gotten me this far in life!

As for the question of accuracy, that is a question better answered with another question: Who is your target audience, and what role does this data play in the story? Let your audience be your guide, and leave your data in a role appropriate to its task.

I'll issue another "Welcome!", Alan. I can't answer your original question; I suspect it's more a matter of style and content than grammar. That is, what are you trying to communicate? After all, 67 is a 67.5% increase over 40, which makes it a good bit away from "about 40" in my book. Also, from the context you give, the numbers are not related, other than their being descriptive of "members."

I was going to post this link earlier, but felt it didn't answer your question. However, others have been discoursing on grammar rules that I suspect are really more a matter of style than grammar. Here is how one behemonth close to my heart (and even closer to my paycheck) deals with numbers, in more detail than you probably want to know.

So, we see that Uncle Sam's printers say to spell out numbers at the beginning of a sentence or heading or else re-write the sentence/headline to move the number.

The GPO Style Manual gives no guidance to using exact vs. approximate numbers. As I said before, it's all in what you are trying to convey. You can be even more vague by using adjectives such as "most," "many," "more," and "some" and avoiding numbers altogether!

Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Thanks for the feedback and the welcome, everyone! Your answers pretty much sum up what I thought; that I should make it up as I go along. (The rule I wound up adopting, if you're curious, is that any number below 100 should be exact; above 100 and we can use generalities. Hey, it makes as much sense as anything else!)

Oh, and brazillian dude, I don't know what you're talking about; that sentence looks fine to me in my post!

--For numbers less than 100, the number must be spelled out, rather than written in numeric form. Forty-three people attended the speech.

--For numbers of 100 or more, the number should be written in numeric form. 143 people attended the speech.

I remember a somewhat more relaxed rule, where numbers up to (and sometimes including) 10 were to be written with letters in the body of a text, larger ones written with Arabic numerals, but, as Tim mentions in a later posting, always written out with letters at the beginning of a sentence....